John Ruskin Quotes

I would rather teach drawing that my pupils may learn to love nature, than teach the looking at nature that they may learn to draw.

All that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, and is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.

Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.

Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor.

I have not written in vain if I have heretofore done anything towards diminishing the reputation of the Renaissance landscape painting.

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.

It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and easy execution in the proper place, than to expand both indiscriminately.

Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make.

Architecture is the work of nations

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

The secret of language is the secret of sympathy, and its full charm is possible only to the gentle

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

Always stand by form against force.

What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

Never has interest in art been so high, and never has quality been so low.

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.

The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing...should be taught to every child just as writing is.

The last act crowns the play.

The Training which Makes Men Happiest in themselves ... also Makes Them Most Serviceable to Others

Genius is only a superior power of seeing.

Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.

Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

I know well that happiness is in little things.

The beauty of the animal form is in exact proportion to the amount of moral and intellectual virtue expressed by it.

I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline.

Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.

There is no action so slight or so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled thereby.

We are, after all, only trustees of the wealth we possess. Without the community and its resources... there would be little wealth for anyone.

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong.

Wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chains of mail, -- strength and defense, though something of an incumbrance.

I believe that the sight is a more important thing than the drawing.

Of all the things that oppress me, this sense of the evil working of nature herself -my disgust at her barbarity -clumsiness -darkness -bitter mockery of herself -is the most desolating.

Greatness is the aggregation of minuteness; nor can its sublimity be felt truthfully by any mind unaccustomed to the affectionate watching of what is least.

Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically; morally, none whatsoever.

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

The Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth.

No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.

It was stated, . . . that the value of architecture depended on two distinct characters:--the one, the impression it receives from human power; the other, the image it bears of the natural creation.

People are always expecting to get peace in heaven: but you know whatever peace they get there will be ready-made. Whatever making of peace they can be blest for, must be on the earth here.

Multitudes think they like to do evil; yet no man ever really enjoyed doing evil since God made the world.

Contrast increases the splendor of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power.

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.